The sea elephant has everything?
Don't waste your money on Furbys and don't tease me.
According to a new study, the body of the bird is what the walrus really wants to play.
You may be surprised to find that the walrus is an interesting creature and you will not be alone.
Compared with more joyful sea lions and seals, even scientists have long thought of 1. 5-
The walrus is the least humorous.
But according to research,
Andre Gillett, author, St.
At the University of Peterborough, this bias may stem from very little research on the walrus.
That's why Giljov and his zoologist Karina Karenina spent a month in 2015 observing a large group of sea elephants on the island of Kolyuchin (map)
In the sea of Chu Keqi near Russia
To avoid interfering with animal behavior, the researchers stood on the cold Cliff, braving the biting wind and risking falling into hundreds of snoring beach beasts. (
See the largest collection of walruses recorded as sea ice contraction. ")
Finally, hard work is worth it.
Giljov and Karenina observed 74 interactions between walruses and seabirds and noticed several different types of animals, the first observation of this animal.
Giljov said: "The reason why young walruses engage in this behavior may be the same as why all animals start playing, and his research was recently published in the journal Psychology.
Games can be important for the development of physical and social skills.
Researchers have known that young male walruses have been playing for a while.
Fight on the beach.
This is considered to be ready for them to compete with their opponents in breeding.
But what's new about this paper is that walruses seem to treat birds as toys. (
See also "crocodiles also play, research says why animals have fun? ")
Sometimes, walruses sneak near live birds floating on the water and scare them away.
Other times, they will dive under the bird at the last minute, then get up from the water and try to kill unsuspecting poultry with ivory.
The gray-brown seagulls, kittiwakes, and tufted sea finches don't seem to care about the species.
As long as it is bird and floating, it seems to be a fair game.
Giljov says it is almost impossible for young walruses to have sex at long distances, where the vast majority of the interactions take place;
However, he suspects that both immature males and females are playing because behavioral differences usually do not occur until the animals get older.
Although this occurs much less frequently, the researchers also observed the play of adults and cited 13 cases of men playing with birds.
It was observed that adult women played only twice.
Interestingly, only one of these 74 encounters resulted in the death of birds, suggesting that the sea elephants did not really try to kill their toys.
Giljov says the most interesting type of game observed is object games, when one or more sea elephants use seabirds bodies as toys.
In this game, the walrus uses the bodies of birds that have been dropped by the Raptor or washed away by the tide.
The walrus will catch the corpse, drag it under water and let it float back to the water. at this time, the walrus will swim up and drag it eight times in a row. (
See the first wild evidence of "chimpanzee" girls playing "dolls. ")
In another example, a sea elephant catches the body of a seabirds in its mouth, while a group of other sea elephants form around it, pushing and tilting on the body holder.
If the corpse holder loosened its grip, the other walrus would catch the bird and take turns in the middle of the circle, a bit like a group of children fighting for football.
Giljov notes that when a sea elephant loses interest, someone even sees it laughing at its partner, putting the body on their head, and then stealing it back before they catch it.
He says this complex game behavior is not common in non-animals.
In 10 interactions with bird bodies, researchers observed that walruses eat dead birds, although walruses usually eat shellfish.
So does that mean that we should see other chase behaviors as an attempt to capture prey rather than a fun and easy game?
Well, this is probably a point of both.
Said Gordon M.
Burghardt, a comparative ethicist at the University of Tennessee and author of the origin of animal games, often stems from other acts such as courtship, fighting, and feeding.
Before eating the rubber mouse, he said, think about a cat playing with the rubber mouse, even the real dead mouse. or]
The dog retrieved the stick compared to retrieving the prey.
Burghburghardt admitted that he was not particularly proficient in elephant behavior, but he did believe that the observation of researchers belonged to the definition of animal games: repetitive, pleasant behavior, these behaviors are similar but not identical to other behaviors that animals are often involved in.
When an animal is healthy and not under pressure, it must also be seen.
He added that it is critical that we study species that are generally not considered to be from walruses to insects to fish in order to better understand this fascinating phenomenon.
This vote of confidence must be good news for Gillett, who said that he only saw the sun three times in a month he spent on Kolyuchin Island, and spent six months, the stench of the sea elephant's feces came from his wild clothes.
However, it is not tragic or frustrating for us because the harsh nature of the Arctic has its own beauty.
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